Armenia Shuts Down #1 Unit at Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant

Armenia’s government today decided to shut down the first energy unit at the Metsamor nuclear power plant.

Ashot Manukyan, the country’s energy minister says that the bloc is being taken off-line so that the operating company HAEK CJSC (Armenian Atomic Power Plant) can more effectively begin work to modernize unit 2 of the plant, permitting it to operate until 2027.

The plant’s first unit went on-line in 1976, and the second was launched in 1980.

A Russian-Armenian joint venture to start work on a new $5 billion nuclear plant in 2016, with twice the electrical-generating capacity of the current one, has never gotten off the ground.